When most people think about marketing their website they think about “How can we get more traffic online” and yet they seem to totally disregard the Offline Website Marketing Tools already available free and in most cases they should be using.
I want to set about in this article to give you 10 Offline Website Marketing Tools that are guaranteed to give you traffic. However game pc offline, one point to note, it will not be easy to track how many people are using these offline website marketing tools unless you ask them. So on your contact page on your website make sure you have a drop down box with these options for your customers to select from. To often website owners only include online website marketing tools in their “How You Heard About Us” drop down boxes on their contact pages.
If you are like my company we have spent thousands of dollars on advertising signage on our business headquarters in Townsville Australia but it still amazes me as I visit other towns and cities, even countries, that businesses with really effective websites still do not advertise their web address on their traditional bricks and mortar signage.
Let me throw a few things at you … How would you like 37,000 people per day to see you! I am quite sure you would do anything to get that sort of traffic wouldn’t you? Course you would. Well there are 200 – 300 business on the street where we are located and in our street we have 37,000 vehicles going past each day which we will call free traffic. Then why wouldn’t you as a business owner have your website address plastered all over your business signs. Do you realise that of the 200-300 businesses that are on our street less than 10 actually have their website address on their business? That’s right, less than ten.
How crazy is that! Going past your business is free traffic. Never underestimate drive by traffic, and if you do not believe me then ask yourself a question, “Why do companies like Walmart, Harvey Norman, Coles Myer etc put their stores on main roads?” For the drive by traffic! It doesn’t matter whether you only get 100 cars a day or 1 million cars a day, having your website address on your signage is a mandatory action. If you do what you will find is that as people go to work and see your website address, they will be more likely to have a look at your website as soon as they get to work than any other time. If a person has a particular need for your products, studies have shown, they are more likely to first check out your website, than actually come into your store.
Just like the previous offline website marketing tool, this is a no brainer. If you have sign writing on your car for your business, you must also put your website address on it. Would you forget to put your phone number on the car? Course Not (Mind you I have seen a few cars that have even forgot that) then why would you forget to put your website address on your car. If your business sells products and services via the internet, then you need to tell your customers where to find you.
30% of our car detailing traffic that I own actually comes from our vehicles and within that 30% over 60% of our business is derived from people seeing our cars on the road, then visiting our web address to see our prices and services and then booking their cars in. So, rule number 2, never forget your website address on your vehicle.
The world seems to be obsessed with the Yellow Pages. It is truly a phenomenon. We pay thousands of dollars a year to be in the Yellow Pages and the three things we check to make sure are in our advertisements are our Address, Telephone number and web address. Most people before they ring you will in fact check out your website first. If the website address tells them nothing, then they will simply move on to the one that has a website address that tells them what they need to know.
Look this one is another one of those no brainers. Everybody in business should have an email address and website address and they should both appear on your business cards prominently. Since a large proportion of business these days is done through email then not having just your email address is costing you business. I know of some businesses that will not communicate with you through anything but email and the phone. They simply refuse to deal with people who have a fax because they want to save money and faxing costs money.
Get your website address on your business cards. If you have only just gone and got brand new business cards printed then go down to your local stationary supply company and buy some small stickers and stick them on the back. Might look tacky but at least your customers will know how to contact you.
When ever you do any advertising at all, whether it is a leaflet drop or billboard advertising in Time Square (Nice if you can afford it) make sure that your website address is on the advertising. When people see your website address they are more likely to visit your site first before coming into your store. Many many important sales are won or lost long before you ever see the customer and in many cases your website could be that deciding factor.
If you have decided to sponsor a Charity or Charity Day or even a sports group then make sure that the Charity or Sporting group includes your Name and Your Website on their printed material. The human race is really quite bizarre as they are more likely to remember your website address than your telephone number. Just like before, if they see your details at a Charity or Sports function, then they are more likely to go to you then your competitors because you are actively supporting your community. To finish this off make sure that the Charity or sporting group gives the customers a way to find you.
One of the core reasons we give our staff uniforms is so that they are easily identifiable when they are out and about but more so, the uniforms make my staff walking billboards for my company. Most companies when developing their uniforms will only include their logos. My recommendation to everyone is to include your website address as well.
Many people have told me they have seen my staff at the shopping centre and seen our web address on their uniforms and that is how they have found us. Some of our biggest customers have come from the website address on my staff uniforms. This is one of the cheapest and free offline website marketing tools.
If you are creating merchandise to give to your customers, make sure you include your website address on the merchandise. In fact, it is less intrusive to include your website address on your merchandise than it is to include your telephone number. Let me give you an example. I am sitting in our business headquarters writing this article and I looked over at a Stainless steel mug that my brother gave me from Canada (He lives in Canada). The mug is a merchandise item from Prince George Savings Credit Union. I tried to look up their site and put in the usual but all I got was spam sites. Finding their website was simply to hard for me and so I gave up.
I should note that this stainless steel mug takes pride and place on my desk in my office and I use it all the time. If they had their website address on this stainless steel mug then I could have easily looked up their website and maybe set up a bank account or invested some money with them but they have made it too difficult to do so.
If your merchandise is designed to push your name or market you in the workplace, then make sure you make it easy for your customers to find you. Remember, most people will go to your website rather then to call or visit your store first, simply to avoid the heavy sell.
When I work with our SEO clients and their business coaches one of the things we look at is their logo. When I first setup our training and car detailing business, one of the things I did was to incorporate our website address in the logo. The core advantage to this is that where ever our logo is our website address is and it allows people to find an easy way for people to contact us.
Often when you are sponsoring teams at football games, the only information about you they allow to be shown is your logo. If you are one of those companies that does not have a prominent office then people may find it to difficult to find you but if you include your website address in your logo, your customers will always have a sure fire way to find you. Remember the human credo, “We Are Lazy!”
When ever you release a press release ensure that you put your website address on it. Many a time, media companies will actually include your website address in their news stories, in particular when they post information about your press release on their websites. I have noticed a trend at MSNBC, Ninemsn and CNN to do this. The advantage to you as the website owner is that the link they include in the text will be treated as a high quality link over others, because most of these three media sites have PR rankings of 8 or more which means this will help you in your webpage rankings in the search engines.
The other point to this is that you may find a traffic peak whilst your news story is actually visible or being played. For example, as a proud Australian I was heartbroken to hear about the death of Steven Irwin an Australian Icon and Legend and also a proud Queenslander like me but when his family did the press release about his death and what he stood for they included the Wild Life Warriors website address on the press release. Virtually every single media outlet around the world has posted the website address on their websites which means this website is doing outstandingly well. Which I am very ecstatic about … as at least in this tragic circumstance there will be some good come out of it.